It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy.

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Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

It’s Tuesday, the traditional day for elections and for our pause-and-consider newsletter on politics and policy. We think of it as a mini-magazine in your inbox.

YOUR SPRING POLITICAL CALENDAR
By Lisa Desjardins, @LisaDNews ([link removed])
Correspondent

Happy spring to all!

In the skies above, birds are migrating ([link removed]) and planets are aligning ([link removed]) . In Washington, cherry blossoms are calling ([link removed]) . And around many, many screens, jaws are ([link removed]) dropping ([link removed]) while watching March Madness.

It’s a great time to look ahead to key dates this season. Here is what is on our calendar.

Some events with no date, yet.
* Biden’s big decision. President Joe Biden announces if he’s running for reelection. This is expected soon ([link removed]) , though it is not clear when.
* Debt ceiling deadline. The exact day the U.S. will run out of financial means to pay its bills is not yet clear. (See below.) But it is as soon as this spring. Currently, the Treasury Department is carefully using special techniques (withholding some payments, moving some others) to keep the government solvent as we hover near our borrowing limit ([link removed]) .

This week, with three major developments happening on Wednesday.
* March 29: Authorization to use military force. We expect the Senate to vote on repealing the congressional bills that allow presidents to use military force in conflicts related to the 1991 Gulf War and the 2001 Iraq War.
* March 29: A brewing over labor practices. Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz testifies before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which is scrutinizing the global coffee chain and its union-busting tactics ([link removed]) . Watch the hearing here ([link removed]) .
* March 29: The clock is ticking for TikTok. This is the deadline for federal agencies to remove the social media platform from government devices. The White House set this deadline as Congress raises questions about TikTok’s potential security risks, a situation experts say may have more to do with politics than privacy concerns ([link removed]) .
* March 31: Transgender Day of Visibility ([link removed]) . With 2023 already a record-breaking year for anti-trans legislation, the question of what it means to be visible ([link removed]) for trans adults and youth in this climate takes on added significance.


April
* Throughout the month: Republican candidate watch. In 2015, the Republican presidential primary kicked off in late March ([link removed]) when Ted Cruz officially entered the race. Former President Donald Trump announced his intention to run again late last year, but we’re still waiting to see how many more Republicans will join what’s expected to be a crowded field.
* April 3-14: Congress goes on recess. Watch out for (or get appointments with) lawmakers at home. This is the only time in spring where the House and Senate are out at precisely the same time.
* April 4: Wisconsin Supreme Court election. An open seat on the narrowly divided court could determine the future of abortion ([link removed]) , and other issues in the state.
* April 4: Chicago mayor runoff. The Second City chooses between two Democrats in a race that has become a test of strength between teachers and police unions ([link removed]) .
* April 17: FOX News trial. The defamation lawsuit ([link removed]) from Dominion Voting Systems against FOX News is set to go to trial this day.
* April 26: White House state dinner. The president and first lady Jill Biden host the South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife, first lady Kim Keon Hee for what will be the second state visit ([link removed]) of the Biden presidency.


May
* May 1: Banking failures. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation will release its reviews of what happened in the recent banking failures ([link removed]) .
* May 11: COVID emergency declarations. The official public health emergency declarations surrounding the COVID pandemic are due to end this day. ([link removed].) This may make COVID tests more expensive ([link removed]) and increase cost-sharing for treatment.


June
* Early June: Debt ceiling. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the U.S. could crash into the debt ceiling as soon as early June ([link removed]) . Much of the middle of the year will revolve around the final date by which the U.S. addresses this.
* June 15: GOP presidential primary doors close. This date marks a symbolic end point for announcements of presidential runs. The first Republican debate is in August. Remember: On June 15, 2015, Trump said he was running for president, making him the final major candidate of that cycle to make an announcement.

More on politics from our coverage:
* Watch: Extremist rhetoric dominates Trump’s 2024 presidential bid ([link removed]) .
* One Big Question: Is Trump losing support ([link removed]) among swing voters? Our new poll highlights a sharp divide between Trump’s base and other voters.
* A Closer Look: The state of Israel’s 75-year-old democracy under Netanyahu’s far-right coalition ([link removed]) .
* Perspectives: Six people are dead, including three children, after Monday’s mass shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. Jillian Peterson, co-founder of The Violence Project, a nonprofit dedicated to data-driven studies on preventing gun violence, lays out what more needs to be done ([link removed]) .

POLL SHOWS WHO WANTS TRUMP TO BE PRESIDENT

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Watch the segment in the player above.

By Laura Santhanam, @LauraSanthanam ([link removed])
Health Reporter and Coordinating Producer for Polling

About three-quarters of Republicans say they want former President Donald Trump to be reelected, and a similar percentage give no credence to the government’s ongoing probes into him and his business, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll ([link removed]) .
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Image by Megan McGrew/PBS NewsHour
But asking that question — do you want Trump to be president again? — implicitly poses another, conservative strategist Whit Ayres said: How badly do they want President Joe Biden out of the White House?

Three factions of voters make up the Republican Party right now, Ayres said: People who would never elect Trump, people who simply want a candidate who can take back the White House and people who would “walk through a wall for him.”

Three quarters of U.S. adults think Trump has done something illegal or unethical, according to the poll. While the headlines about Trump’s legal troubles ([link removed]) may refresh the loyalty of his most ardent supporters, Amy Walter, editor of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, cautioned that Trump’s investigations could “alienate the swing voters you’d need to win a general election.”

Furthermore, she said, this series of unprecedented investigations ([link removed]) could be self-defeating “if the weight becomes so heavy it actually does push Republicans away from him.”

With 2024 presidential primaries starting in less than a year, much can change, Ayres said, adding, “The Republican primary is wide open.”

#POLITICSTRIVIA
By Matt Loffman, @mattloff ([link removed])
Politics Producer

Vice President Kamala Harris has spent the past few days in Ghana as part of a weeklong, three-country tour of Africa ([link removed]) .

The vice president is the highest-ranking member of the Biden administration to visit the continent, following trips by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Africa later this year; eight U.S. presidents have traveled to Africa during their presidencies.

Our question: Which U.S. president was the first to visit Africa?

Send your answers to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or tweet using #PoliticsTrivia. The first correct answers will earn a shout-out next week.

Last week, we asked: Which U.S. president was once arrested by Washington, D.C., police? And what was he accused of doing?

The answer: Ulysses S. Grant ([link removed]) . He was arrested for speeding in a horse-drawn carriage, a story confirmed years ago ([link removed]) by a former D.C. police chief.

Congratulations to our winners: Lew Zackin and Adam Harp!

Thank you all for reading and watching. We’ll drop into your inbox next week.
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